The Mark of Zorro

The Mark of Zorro (1920), starring Douglas Fairbanks, is available to watch online on iFILM — directed by Fred Niblo, this silent adventure established the masked-hero archetype that Hollywood would keep recycling for the next century.

By day, Don Diego Vega plays the idle nobleman: he yawns through conversations, fidgets with a handkerchief, lets insults bounce off him. Nobody suspects him of anything. After dark he rides out as Zorro, cutting his signature mark into the corrupt officials who run colonial California and leaving no one sure where to look.

Fairbanks made the foppish alter ego genuinely funny, then switched gears into swordplay and stunts without a single cut feeling forced. The film was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012. Stream The Mark of Zorro online on iFILM.